MORRISONS supermarket has donated £1,544 to support newborn babies and their families in Bradford’s Neonatal Unit.
The Bradford-based company gave the cash to Bradford Hospitals’ Charity’s Neonatal Fund after a bucket collection at its head office raised £772. The money raised by staff was matched by the Morrisons Foundation – the supermarket’s charitable arm – boosting the total to £1,544.
It is the latest in a number of generous donations given by the supermarket’s staff. Since 2016, they have also donated a further £1,000, around 1,000 baby grows, bibs, muslin cloths, home-wear, appliances and toiletries for the Neonatal Unit’s family accommodation and colouring books and pencils for ‘sibling packs’. Staff and their friends and family also keep busy knitting blankets for the babies.
Maxcine Etherington, property advisor at Morrisons, co-ordinated the fundraising for the unit. She said: “The work staff at the Neonatal Unit do is just amazing. Their dedication is awe-inspiring, so we will do anything we can do to help them.
“One of the reasons I love working for Morrisons is that we are encouraged to support our community and empowered to give something back.”
Adrian Horsley, Morrisons Foundation Advisor, visited the Neonatal Unit with Maxcine and said: “I’m absolutely delighted that the Morrisons Foundation has been able to support Maxcine’s excellent fundraising through our colleague ‘Match Funding’ scheme.
Generous support
“The generous support of Morrisons colleagues towards Maxcine’s fundraising for Bradford Hospitals’ Charity’s Neonatal Fund really does make a difference and I’m very proud to see in person what great work the staff do at the unit.”
Neonatal Matron Kelly Young said: “We are so grateful to Morrisons for the donations and support we have received over the years. Maxcine has been so generous with her time, co-ordinating fundraising, donating items and encouraging people to knit blankets! She is a real credit to the company.
“All the money raised by staff, and the kind donation from the Morrisons Foundation, will go towards providing the very best care and treatment for our babies and their families.”
Hayley Collis, head of fundraising for Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, said: “We are grateful to Morrisons and its staff, who have always supported our hospital charity. Sir Ken Morrison opened our original Neonatal Unit when it was first built, so we have a proud, long-standing relationship.
“Morrisons is proud of its Bradford roots and we are proud to work with such a community-minded company.”
To find out more about Bradford Hospitals’ Charity and how you can support your local hospitals, visit www.bradfordhospitalscharity.org. Alternatively, contact Hayley Collis or Elaine Drake on 01274 274809 or email charity@bthft.nhs.uk
ENDS
Note to Editors:
- Bradford Hospitals’ Charity is one of more than 250 NHS charities based around the UK. It supports the strategic direction of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust by funding projects which go over and above what he NHS provides.
- Did you know that, together, all NHS charities give £1million every single day to the NHS!
- In 2017, a new £28million wing opened at Bradford Royal Infirmary, which was part of a £75m investment to improve patient care across our hospitals. It provides world-class facilities for the elderly, children and a brand new intensive care unit. Bradford Hospitals’ Charity provided £260,000 to enable the Trust to create family friendly environments, state-of-the-art equipment and innovative distraction toys and games for young people.
- With the support of Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, BTHFT was also able to provide more cots, including intensive care and high dependency cots, new family accommodation, a revamped counselling suite and a dedicated room for mothers to express milk for pre-term babies when the new neonatal unit opened in 2015.
For further media information, please contact Kelly Thornham, Communications Officer, at communications@bthft.nhs.uk or call 01274 382265
Twitter: @BTHFTCharity Facebook: bradfordhospitalscharity Instagram:BTHFTcharity LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/bradfordhospitalscharity
The Morrisons Foundation was set up as an independent charity by Morrisons Supermarkets in February 2015. It makes grant awards of up to £25,000 to registered charities in communities throughout the UK and provides match funding for Morrisons colleagues who fundraise for their chosen charities.
Since launch, the Morrisons Foundation has donated more than £29 million to registered charities across England, Scotland and Wales. The Morrisons Foundation receives all of its income from Morrisons.
Contact: Adrian Horsley, Corporate Services Advisor – Foundation. Email: adrian.horsley@morrisonsplc.co.uk Tel 0845 611 4449
Note to Editors:
- Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is responsible for providing hospital services for the people of Bradford and communities across Yorkshire. We serve a core population of around 500,000 and provide specialist services for 1.1 million people.
Our 5,500 staff work over several sites, including Bradford Royal Infirmary, which provides the majority of inpatient services, and St Luke’s Hospital, which predominantly provides outpatient and rehabilitation services. We also manage local community hospitals at Westwood Park, Westbourne Green, and Eccleshill.
In early 2017, a new £28 million wing opened at Bradford Royal Infirmary, part of a £75m investment to improve patient care across our hospitals over a five-year period. It provides world-class facilities for elderly care, children’s services, a state-of-the-art intensive care unit with increased single-room provision and a retail concourse.
The new wing is a continuation of our work to improve patient experience after our new £2 million neonatal unit officially opened in January 2015. Our maternity services were recently shortlisted for the Royal College of Midwives’ (RCM) Midwifery Service of the Year Award, recognising excellence and innovation in the provision of maternity care.
In 2017, we also completed a £2m refurbishment of our Emergency Department (ED) as part of an ambitious vision to create a more efficient acute medicine service for the people of Bradford. It has been designed to provide a slicker and more efficient service, with faster senior clinical involvement at an early stage in the patient pathway.
As a teaching hospital, we are at the forefront of education and development in healthcare, and have an excellent reputation for research performance. We are one of the leading centres in conducting applied research in the country, particularly in quality and safety, elderly care and rehabilitation.
The Trust is home to the Bradford Institute for Health Research (BIHR) where researchers have led the development, validation and implementation of the award-winning Bradford Electronic Frailty Index (eFI) which helps calculate an elderly person’s risk of disability, impairment, falls and complications of chronic diseases, as well as their diminishing independence and capability. This is now being used by 98 per cent of all GPs across the country.
Our award-winning Ophthalmology department is home to numerous worldwide clinical trials taking the lead in eye care research and we are one of only three sites in the United Kingdom to be enlisted in the Perioperative Enhanced Recovery Hip Fracture Care of Patients with Dementia (PERFECTED) study, which will investigate how the NHS can introduce better standards of care to improve outcomes for people with dementia.
For more information please visit www.bradfordhospitals.nhs.uk